Snow has fallen in the Sahara Desert for the third time in 40 years
For only the third time in 40 years, the Sahara desert has seen the snow.
The Algerian town of Ain Sefra woke up to falling snow on Sunday morning, giving children the opportunity to enjoy it for possibly the first time in their lives.
As the video above shows, more than a foot of snow fell on some areas of the border.
Towns in the area saw only a dusting but the sand dunes and outskirts saw much up to 16 inches of the white stuff.
Unfortunately the temperature rose throughout the day, which saw the snow starting to melt around 5pm.
The town, otherwise known as ‘The Gateway to the Desert’ very rarely sees snowfall, due to the usually warm conditions.
But an especially cold spell from the north Atlantic was drawn further south than normal, due to high pressure in Europe, and hit parts of Morocco and western Algeria.
Ain Sefra has seen snow for the last two years, but both times it’s vanished by the end of the day.
However in 1979, a snowstorm lasting half an hour stopped traffic.
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Snow in the Sahara is ‘unusual but not unheard of,’ a spokeswoman for the Met office told The Independent
‘It seems like the snowy pictures were taken across the higher areas in the north of the region, towards the Atlas regions, so it’s not surprising that the area would see some snow if the conditions were right.
‘With the setup over Europe at the moment, which has given us cold weather over the weekend, a push southwards of cold air into that region and some sort of moisture would bring that snow.’
The town has average high temperatures of over 37C in summer and has seen record lows of -10.2C in winter.
